In November, at Harvard Business School, Christian Lim had the honor of representing the SWEN Blue Ocean team in a class dedicated to a new Business Case about SWEN Blue Ocean. Created by Professor Vikram Gandhi and David Allen, this case highlights the team’s unique approach to combining impact and return strategies to drive ocean regeneration. Christian extended his gratitude to the students for their engaging discussions and to the professors for developing this impactful case.
When Christian and Olivier launched SWEN Blue Ocean in 2021, they envisioned redesigning investment governance from the ground up to align science, nature, and finance. Their vision was to create a model that integrates nature into investment decisions globally, helping to mainstream impact investing. With this in mind, they designed SWEN Blue Ocean’s investment governance framework around two core principles:
An independent Impact Committee, composed of science and conservation experts, validates the impact thesis for every proposed investment before it goes to the Investment Committee.
Fifty percent of the investment team’s carried interest (performance bonus) is contingent on achieving impact KPIs, which are validated by an Impact Governance Committee made up of fund investors and experts.
SWEN Blue Ocean evaluates impact both qualitatively and quantitatively, recognizing that both dimensions are essential to capturing the complexity of biodiversity impact.
This Harvard Business Case is a significant milestone for SWEN Blue Ocean. It acknowledges the pioneering nature of their investment governance model and its potential to influence the wider financial sector. The case also showcases how SWEN Capital Partners’ mission to “Put finance at the service of Nature” translates into action, and it highlights the Ocean Impact Navigator—a shared impact measurement framework developed by 1000 Ocean Startups, integral to their approach.
The case further explores SWEN Blue Ocean’s investment in WSENSE, a company they backed in 2023. WSENSE has developed an innovative underwater telecommunication technology, essentially the “Wi-Fi of the ocean,” which democratizes ocean data to support a more transparent and sustainable ocean economy. While this technology has great potential to accelerate ocean activities, positive or negative, the SWEN Blue Ocean team made its investment decision based on the ethical leadership and high standards demonstrated by Chiara, WSENSE’s founder and CEO, and her team.
Looking ahead:
The case will soon be available for purchase through Harvard Business Publishing Education, a valuable resource for those teaching sustainable finance.
Christian invites those working to advance investment governance that incorporates science and nature to reach out for potential collaboration.
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